Monday, March 28, 2011

Facebook and Its Support of The Third Palestinian Intifada

There is an attack against Israeli Jews happening on Facebook but the social media site refuses to shut the incitement down. Its called the Third Palestinian Intifada, and the site is almost totally in Arabic. The 'Third Palestinian Intifada', urges its readers to copy the link, place it in their profiles and publish it on all pictures, videos and pages – everywhere they can. An alert announces that a march to “Palestine” will begin from neighboring countries on May 15 and soon after, “Palestine will be liberated and we will be freed. Our goal now is to reach millions of subscribers on this page before May.”

The page also includes hateful language calling for its supporters supporters to build on the previous two murderous previous intifadas in which Arab terrorists murdered and wounded thousands of Israeli civilians and caused the death and injury of thousands of innocent Palestinians.

The second intifada is also called the Oslo War as it took place after the Oslo process broke down and Yasser Arafat walked a way from a peace deal which would have given him a Palestinian State and 98% of his demands.

The Facebook page directs readers to supplementary content on other sites such as Twitter and You Tube. And ends with a warning to Facebook. "If Facebook Blocks this page..All Muslims Will Boycott Facebook Forever."

In one of the rare cases of his caring about Jewish Issues instead of the progressive agenda, the ADL's Abe Foxman blasted the Third Intifada site and Facebook:

"This Facebook page constitutes an appalling abuse of technology to promote terrorist violence," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Although the managers of this group claim to be calling for peaceful demonstrations, the Third Intifada pages include calls for followers to build on the previous two intifadas. We should not be so naïve to believe that a campaign for a 'Third Intifada' does not portend renewed violence, especially in the current climate that has seen a dramatic increase in rocket attacks from Gaza, the brutal murder of the Fogel family in the West Bank, and a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem."

....."We are disappointed that Facebook has rejected our request to remove this site, which is in clear violation of their terms of service," said Mr. Foxman. "We are especially disappointed in this case because in the past there has often been understanding and sensitivity from Facebook when we have brought violations of its own rules to its attention. We urge Facebook to reconsider its decision and remove this site, which by its very title incites violence."

An email campaign to pressure the popular social networking site into removing the page has been mounted by pro-Israel groups as well as private individuals. All have expressed increasing concern over the potential danger to Israeli citizens that may result from the page, which clearly promotes violence against Jews in Israel. As of tonight the site has revived almost 348,000 "likes"

Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein wrote in a letter e- mailed to media yesterday. “As Facebook’s CEO and founder you are obviously aware of the site’s great potential to rally the masses around good causes, and we are all thankful for that,” Edelstein said. “However, such potential comes hand in hand with the ability to cause great harm such as in the case of the wild incitement displayed on the above-mentioned page.”

There are other sites Facebook should look at also as The Third Intifada site is not the only Anti-Semitic or Israel directed hate site on Facebook as shown by this video from my former writing home Aish HaTorah. (if you cannot see video below click here)

The social media site answered NO:

“While some kinds of comments and content may be upsetting for someone -­ criticism of a certain culture, country, religion, lifestyle, or political ideology, for example -- that alone is not a reason to remove the discussion,” Debbie Frost, a spokeswoman for Facebook, said in an e-mailed statement.

“We strongly believe that Facebook users have the ability to express their opinions, and we don’t typically take down content, groups or Pages that speak out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas,” she said.

Facebook is being disingenuous, This is not a site which disagrees with Israel's positions. It is a site that calls for the destruction of Israel,and the murder of Jewish Israelis.

The internet is all about "freedom of ideas" I get that. And in most cases I agree. But there is also a built in responsibility for sites to guard themselves from becoming purveyors of hate. It is the reason why I do not allow comments to be published on The Lid until they are reviewed. Sadly Facebook does not believe it has this responsibility, and they cannot differentiate between opinion and incitement.

BREAKING UPDATE:

Despite previous statements saying they would monitor but not remove the controversial Facebook group calling for a Third Intifada, Facebook administrators shut down the group early Tuesday morning in response to enormous pressure from pro-Israel activists. All links to the group now go to users personal Facebook profile.